Abstract
A search for a charged Higgs boson, H ±, produced in top-quark decays, t → H ± b, is presented. The search targets H ± decays into a bottom and a charm quark, H ± → cb. The analysis focuses on a selection enriched in top-quark pair production, where one top quark decays into a leptonically decaying W boson and a bottom quark, and the other top quark decays into a charged Higgs boson and a bottom quark. This topology leads to a lepton-plus-jets final state, characterised by an isolated electron or muon and at least four jets. The search exploits the high multiplicity of jets containing b-hadrons, and deploys a neural network classifier that uses the kinematic differences between the signal and the background. The search uses a dataset of proton-proton collisions collected at a centre-of-mass energy s = 13 TeV between 2015 and 2018 with the ATLAS detector at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, amounting to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb −1. Observed (expected) 95% confidence-level upper limits between 0.15% (0.09%) and 0.42% (0.25%) are derived for the product of branching fractions B (t → H ± b) × B(H ± → cb) for charged Higgs boson masses between 60 and 160 GeV, assuming the SM production of the top-quark pairs. [Figure not available: see fulltext.].
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 4 |
| Journal | Journal of High Energy Physics |
| Volume | 2023 |
| Issue number | 9 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 2023 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
We acknowledge the support of ANPCyT, Argentina; YerPhI, Armenia; ARC, Australia; BMWFW and FWF, Austria; ANAS, Azerbaijan; CNPq and FAPESP, Brazil; NSERC, NRC and CFI, Canada; CERN; ANID, Chile; CAS, MOST and NSFC, China; Minciencias, Colombia; MEYS CR, Czech Republic; DNRF and DNSRC, Denmark; IN2P3-CNRS and CEA-DRF/IRFU, France; SRNSFG, Georgia; BMBF, HGF and MPG, Germany; GSRI, Greece; RGC and Hong Kong SAR, China; ISF and Benoziyo Center, Israel; INFN, Italy; MEXT and JSPS, Japan; CNRST, Morocco; NWO, Netherlands; RCN, Norway; MEiN, Poland; FCT, Portugal; MNE/IFA, Romania; MESTD, Serbia; MSSR, Slovakia; ARRS and MIZŠ, Slovenia; DSI/NRF, South Africa; MICINN, Spain; SRC and Wallenberg Foundation, Sweden; SERI, SNSF and Cantons of Bern and Geneva, Switzerland; MOST, Taiwan; TENMAK, Türkiye; STFC, United Kingdom; DOE and NSF, United States of America. In addition, individual groups and members have received support from BCKDF, CANARIE, Compute Canada and CRC, Canada; PRIMUS 21/SCI/017 and UNCE SCI/013, Czech Republic; COST, ERC, ERDF, Horizon 2020 and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, European Union; Investissements d’Avenir Labex, Investissements d’Avenir Idex and ANR, France; DFG and AvH Foundation, Germany; Herakleitos, Thales and Aristeia programmes co-financed by EU-ESF and the Greek NSRF, Greece; BSF-NSF and MINERVA, Israel; Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014-2021, Norway; NCN and NAWA, Poland; La Caixa Banking Foundation, CERCA Programme Generalitat de Catalunya and PROMETEO and GenT Programmes Generalitat Valenciana, Spain; Göran Gustafssons Stiftelse, Sweden; The Royal Society and Leverhulme Trust, United Kingdom.
Keywords
- Hadron-Hadron Scattering